I shall probably have to retrench in attention to the American section if I keep on giving pages to this section. But in spite of their great merit, the work of Kallstenius, Schultzberg, Carlberg, and Osslund will have to go with only meager reference. Osslund's pictures are somewhat startling at first, owing to a complexity of technical treatment. He does not seem to be working in the right medium, for I believe his Japanesque landscapes could be far more sympathetically presented in watercolour. Of the group comprising his work, his "Waterfall", "Summer Evening", and "Evening on Angermann Land" are very fascinating. Mas-Olle's portraits are interesting not only for good technical painting but also for fine characterization. His portrait of an old peasant of Dalecarlia is almost faultless. Near the Mas-Olle portrait Herman Lindquist has a "Sunny April Day" of unusual poetic claim. Schultzberg's big sunlit winter scenes hardly need recommendation to justify their increasing popularity. Alfred Bergstrom's poetic landscapes add more interest, in the small adjoining room on the east. Marine pictures by Hullgren are the only contributions in that field, but quite sufficient to maintain the general standard of excellence. The drunken man seated at a café table is psychologically interesting. As an object lesson to discourage the consumption of liquor it is the most effective picture I have ever seen, and certain interests would do well to buy it for that reason alone, not to speak of the relief this would afford. Ernst Küsel's animal pictures, opposite John Bauer's delightful group, seem quite out of place. His ducks and the goats are satisfactory enough, but I wish he had to live with that calf picture and see it every day. Küsel is undoubtedly humourously inclined, without knowing proper limitations.
The sculpture of the Swedes is of the same unusual excellence that commands so much respect in their other work. Edstrom easily outranks his fellow-artists in his group of naturalistic and conventional architectural heads, in the Liljefors gallery, while in the long and narrow adjoining gallery a multitude of excellent etchings, drawings, and black and white work compel mention. They hardly need any explanation, since in their very character they readily convey their meaning. One could dwell at greater length upon this most representative of all national displays, but I fear that it would have to be done at the expense of the American section, which hospitality has already placed under a disadvantage.
Holland
The Netherlands representation is conspicuous for its conservative note, together with the absence of any single picture which might unduly excite one by its merit. I do not wish to prejudice the art lover who strolls into this well appointed section, but coming from Sweden, as we do, so to speak, since it is Sweden's next door neighbor, it gives one rather a shock. Most of the Dutch pictures are good, almost too good, in their academic conventional repetition of the timeworn subjects we have been in the habit of seeing for the last twenty years. The Swedish section is full of real thrills, but the complacency of the Netherlands section can hardly be explained by their national temperament alone. While the Swedish people seem to be blessed just now with an unusual number of men of great gifts in the field of art, the Netherlands have entered into what I hope will be only an interregnum of not overly original painters. The last quarter of the last century saw their glory in the careers of men like the elder Israels, the Mesdags, the Maris, Jacob and Willem, Bosbom, Mauve, Weissenbruch, Poggenbeck, and many others who have departed during the last ten years, or who, if still living, have scarcely maintained their high standards of earlier days. The most illustrious name among the older men is Willem Mesdag, who can hardly be expected at his age to be doing his best. Speaking of Mesdag, one of their best marine painters of the older days, one is forcibly reminded of the fact that though a people of the sea the Dutch do not seem to possess a single strong marine painter. One looks in vain for any pictures of the open sea reflecting the seafaring traditions and activities of the Dutch, and if it were not for Mastenbroek's masterly harbor pictures, one would have to console oneself over this lack of the briny element with a view of the Amsterdam Marine Aquarium. Mastenbroek's big canvas is full of life and well painted. It shows the harbor of Rotterdam animated by a host of vessels of all kinds and descriptions. While there is a fine feeling of loose accidental arrangement about this big picture, it is nevertheless well composed. His small canvas in the adjoining gallery is technically superb, and to my mind the best canvas in the whole Dutch show. In the middle of the same wall Gorter's very decorative autumnal landscape, of a group of beech-trees, commends itself by an unusual feeling for colour and design, so lacking in the two almost monochromatic, untemperamental Witsens on either side. Almost opposite in the same gallery, the most western in the Netherlands section, hangs a broadly painted canvas by Breitner, of the timber harbor of Amsterdam. It is not so original a subject as one is accustomed to see from Breitner, but fully deserving of the best place on the wall. Thérèse van Duyl-Schwartze's portrait alongside is equal to her usual performances, and very broad in style and full of vigor. Jurres' "Don Quixote", Goedvriend's little canvas, and Bauer's "Oriental Equestrian" should all be mentioned in this gallery.
In the middle gallery, on the right of the big Mastenbroek, Christian Addicks' "Mother and Child" charms by its richness of colouring, while in the left corner hangs a very decorative still-life in the best manner of such old Dutch painters as Hondekoeter. Nicolaas Bastert has a typical Dutch canal, and Willy Sluiter a good study of a Volendam fisherman. One gallery is entirely devoted to etchings, woodcuts, and mezzotints, and the standard maintained in this gallery is high. Martinus Bauer's three etchings are among the finest to be seen anywhere in the exhibition, and the work of Harting, van Hoytema, and Haverman do not fall much below his standard. There is young Israels (Isaac) with some very snappy sketches. Nieuwenkamp is intensely interesting in the few things he has there, with a certain sense of humor which is conspicuous for its absence in most Dutch work. The woodcuts of Veldheer are vital and unusually free from any academic feeling. Considering the relative size of the Netherlands, they have a remarkably large number of artists, but scarcely of sufficient bigness of caliber and independence of character to live up to the traditions of this people.
Germany
Very modestly tucked away and surrounded by art of the few remaining neutral nations, in a small gallery adjoining Holland and Sweden, Germany unofficially and probably even without her knowledge is represented by a small group of pictures which after many adventures reached the hospitable shores of California. Originally exhibited at the last Carnegie Institute Exhibition at Pittsburgh, they found themselves on the high seas on their return voyage at the beginning of the war, only to be captured by an English cruiser whose captain was so painfully struck by the undeniable evidences of German Kultur that instead of taking them to England he returned them to the United States, to be included eventually in our exhibition. It would be very wrong to generalize upon the standard of German art from this small display, but a number of these pictures can well afford to go entirely upon their own merit.
Zügel's cattle picture is a canvas of the first order, by one of the very important modern animal painters, a man whose fame has penetrated into all lands where art is at all cultivated. The silvery light of a summer morning, filtering through overhanging willow-trees upon the backs of a few Holstein cows, is full of life and admirably loose in its treatment. Above Zügel, Leo Putz, another Munich man, has a lady near a pond, broadly painted, and executed in the peculiar Putz method of square, mosaic-like paint areas which melt into a soft harmony of tender grays and greens. Stuck's "Nocturne" is affected and unconvincing and scarcely representative of this master's style. The many other men give a good account of themselves, particularly Curt Agthe, whose classic "Nude at the Spring" is of wonderful surface quality. Wenk has an Italian marine and Benno Becker a landscape from the same country. Göhler's "Castle Terrace" has a particularly fine sky and a true rococo atmosphere. Hans von Volkmann's "Field of Ripe Grain" is typical of this Karlsruhe painter, whose stone lithographs have given German art a unique place in the art world.
The United States
Almost one-third of the entire Fine Arts Palace is occupied by the art of the United States, and considering the privileges it enjoys, we have no reason to offer any excuses. One thing should be said, a fact which must force itself immediately upon any careful observer - that we have been very hospitable to the foreign nations at the loss of our own physical comfort. The growing demand from some of the foreign nations for more space than originally applied for has crowded the American section in some instances into rather uncomfortable conditions. On the other hand we do not seem to have acquired such attractive ways of hanging our pictures as the Swedes, Hollanders, or Italians practice; probably for lack of funds. At any rate the American section looks very businesslike and very democratic, without all the frills and fancies of other nations, where every psychological advantage has been taken in order to make things palatable. We have even been criticized for our lack of spaciousness in hanging, but let us not grieve over this, since it does at least save steps in walking from one picture to the next.